<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>5 Times Steve Rogers Lost Someone and 1 Time He Pushed Them Away by stark2ash</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29869575">5 Times Steve Rogers Lost Someone and 1 Time He Pushed Them Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stark2ash/pseuds/stark2ash'>stark2ash</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(interpretation of when Steve crashes the plane), 5+1 Things, Bucky Barnes &amp; Steve Rogers Friendship, Canon Temporary Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Minor Character Death, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Stucky - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, because it’s just Steve’s pov, i'll fix these tags later, if it’s not obvious - this is sad, implied Steve/Bucky, one-sided, pre-stucky, steve rogers &amp; sadness, the basic events are from canon but the rest of it is not</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:46:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29869575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stark2ash/pseuds/stark2ash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is no stranger to loss.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. sarah</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve remembers the first crackle in his mother’s lungs as she comes home from the hospital. He’s sketching at the table, and hears her brush into their apartment, hanging her jacket on the hooks next to the door. She asks him about his day, stopping beside him to look at his work. His pencil is dull, but it hasn’t stopped him from drawing the outline of the docks where Bucky works, almost ready for shading. She compliments him on the details, but as she turns away, Steve hears the hitch in her throat as she holds back a cough. The second time she isn’t as successful, and he turns in his seat to see if she’s okay. Her smile warms the room and dissipates his immediate concerns, and he stands. He remembers thinking that tea with honey would soothe her throat.</p><p>She tries to stay away for the first week, telling him that the cold would come and go, as colds do. They open the windows to the still-warm autumn air and listen to a radio show and Steve sits across the room, watching as she huddles under a blanket, breathing loud enough to cut through the music. Bucky’s mother stops in once a day to make sure they’re all right. She smiles sadly at him as she checks his Ma’s fever and makes sure she’s comfortable, but it’s a losing battle. The blood comes after, red spotting her hacking coughs, and he knows she tries to hide it, but it only takes two days until she’s taken to the same tuberculosis ward she worked in weeks ago. He’s not allowed in, but he holds her hand through an open window and immortalizes the warmth of her smile with charcoal and paper.</p><p>When he hears the knock on the door, he knows it can only be bad news. A police officer stands on the other side, holding out an envelope. Steve takes it, and the man walks away, leaving him to open a letter when he already knows what it says. Bucky finds him there hours later when he finishes his shift, lying on the floor, staring numbly at the ceiling, with the paper still clutched to his chest. He lays down next to him, and Steve rolls into his arms – Bucky is covered in sweat and dirt, but there’s a hint of aftershave and his hands pull Steve close. They lay there, and he looks to the side, trying to clear the first line of the letter from his vision. <em>We regret to inform you</em>, it says, and his Ma’s name is further down the page; it’s all that he sees before he stops reading. The room is foreign without her, a bare bones apartment with pictures tacked onto the walls, and the stripped cotton mattress that his Ma had laid on before they took her to the hospital. He hadn’t gotten around to putting on new sheets.</p><p>Steve realizes he’s sobbing again when he feels Bucky’s hand comb through his hair. His Ma always did that when he was upset. <em>Steve</em>, she would say, <em>take deep breaths for me</em>. Fingers in his hair, brushing it back so she can see his face. <em>It’s okay, you’re okay</em>. Watching him to make sure he was getting air, giving reproachful lectures when he stays out too long at night. Laughter as they knead dough together, exasperation as he tries to scrub paint off his hands before dinner. Handing him his acceptance letter to art school, putting every extra penny towards his future so that he would succeed. <em>I know you’ll do amazing things, Steve.</em></p><p>He cries himself to sleep in Bucky’s arms.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. bucky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Based on that one scene in TFA :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s not sure how they get back to camp after the train, but every part of him is numb when he asks if he can write a note to Bucky’s family to send in the same envelope as the MIA notice. They let him, and he doesn’t know if it’s standard practice or if it’s because he’s Captain America. <em>I’m sorry,</em> he writes, <em>I did everything I could, </em>and then the paper is blurry in front of him and his grip on the pencil falters. Peggy finds him there some time later, sitting at a table in the destroyed bar with a half-empty bottle in front of him, still staring blankly at the paper. She looks at it, takes the sight of him in, and her hand finds its way around his shoulders.</p><p>Steve’s eyes refocus on the bottle on the table. The taste of alcohol is still sharp on his tongue, but his mind is as present as ever. He pours another glass and closes his eyes, tipping it down his throat, but it won’t grant escape like it would have before. Peggy squeezes his shoulder as he sighs.</p><p>“Dr. Erskine said that the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells.” He puts the glass back on the table. “Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means I can’t get drunk.” He pours another glass, emptying the bottle. “Did you know that?”</p><p>
  <em>“I had him on the ropes.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I know you did.”</em>
</p><p>He doesn’t need to see her face to know how she’s looking at him – sad eyes, red lips, and the kind of deep empathy that only comes from those who have seen loss at larger scales than should be possible. “Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person.” Her voice is crisp, in sharp contrast to the way he speaks through his tears. “He thought it could be one of the side effects.” She sits on one of the bar stools that hasn’t been destroyed in the bombing, and a memory shoots through his mind: Peggy walking through the crowded bar, a tight red dress and poise in the midst of men that only she could pull off, telling off the Commandos and sidestepping Bucky’s flirting in the same breath. When she left, he and Bucky sat in the corner, trading jokes and memories and it was only a few days ago. Now his team is injured, Bucky is dead, and he’s sitting in a splintering room, waiting to wake up from this dream.</p><p>“It wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>It feels like someone’s squeezing his throat. “Did you read the reports?” He can’t look her in the eyes.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Then you know that’s not true.” He can’t bring himself to contradict her out loud; it’s taking too much energy to hold back tears. “You did everything you could.” <em>Liar. </em>He could have killed the man before he blew a hole in the train. He could have held onto the shield when the weapon fired at them. He could have gotten up faster. He could have covered Bucky. He could have gotten to him faster. He could have stretched his hand out farther.</p><p>“Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him?”</p><p>
  <em>“There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them.”</em>
</p><p>“Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it.”</p><p>
  <em>“Hang on! Grab my hand!”</em>
</p><p>Steve wasn’t worth Bucky’s life. He was a military puppet that they finally got some real use out of, but Bucky had a future. Bucky could have a wife and children and a medal when he got home and Steve would always be fighting someone’s war, trying to make sure everyone else got home to their own futures.</p><p>“I’m not gonna stop till all of Hydra is dead or captured.” He owes him that, at least. To make up for the life he would never get to have.</p><p>“You won’t be alone.” She helps him up from the chair, and they must make a strange sight, a short woman with red lipstick supporting the weight of the strongest man on the face of the earth. Peggy leaves him at the door to the barracks with a squeeze of her hand, telling him she’ll see him tomorrow.</p><p>The room is dark, with only trails of the sunset peeking through a few windows, but the row of military regulation bunks is almost comforting until he realizes that Bucky’s pack is still in the bunk next to his. Steve sits on his bed, wrinkling the sheets, and unties the flap that keeps it closed.</p><p>Bucky’s cigarettes are right on top, above a few folded pieces of paper, letters from his family that Steve doesn’t want to read. There’s a photo of his family from a few years back, all of them dressed up and smiling, and his gaze lingers on the confidence in Bucky’s grin. He always had an infectious energy, able to charm the nearest person with his looks and manners in one second and run around Rockaway Beach with Steve in the next.</p><p>The next thing he pulls out isn’t a photo at all, but a drawing. Bucky had been complaining that he wouldn’t have anything to remember Steve by after he got shipped out, so Steve drew the two of them together, sitting on the fire escape to his apartment. It was half a joke, half some sort of unspoken emotional gift that ended when Bucky grinned, clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder that almost caused his knees to buckle, and tucked the drawing into an inner pocket of his new uniform.</p><p>A tear splashes down onto the paper, but Steve leaves it. Better to have water damage than to smudge the last thing he has of his friend.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. steve</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>
  <i>I gotta put her in the water</i>
</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tw/suicidal thoughts</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ship is over the water, with nothing but sun and sea for miles around him, and he’s panicking.  </p><p>Red Skull is gone, burned through before his eyes, the Tesseract dropping into the ocean where he hopes no one will ever find it again. The sense of relief lasts only a few moments.</p><p>Was this something he signed up for on the enlistment form? Maybe it was a subheading under the disclaimer section. There were so many places for him to sign he lost count. Maybe after “I understand that I am not entitled to medical care or financial compensation upon return the country in case of injury or death” there was fine print reading “May fight bright red Nazi overlord and then decide how to divert bombs targeting major American cities with limited training.” It’s not like he read everything on the form. Bucky probably would have mentioned it if it was there. Seems like the sort of thing he’d use to discourage Steve from enlisting.</p><p>It’s too late for them, anyway.</p><p>There’s a large expanse of ice ahead, and he turns slightly, aiming for the center of it. A sense of calm washes over him. Bucky is gone. His mother is gone. As long as he grounds the plane before the bombs reach their destination, Hydra will be gone. The war will be won.</p><p>He just won’t be around to see it.</p><p>He tells Peggy his plan. Says goodbye. Turns the radio off because he can’t subject her to his last moments. Can’t let her hear him like he heard Bucky.</p><p>The drawing of them is still tucked into the pocket of his uniform.</p><p><em>So this is it</em>, he thinks. There’s nothing left for him on the living side of the world, no one strong enough to keep him here. He’s never lived without Bucky, he completely believed that he was walking into a death trap when he decided to rescue him from Hydra. Sheer luck that they both made it out alive.</p><p>The compass is in his outer pocket, and he props it above the controls. Peggy’s face stares back at him as he digs through his pocket for the drawing of him and Bucky. The paper will be damaged, the pencil will dissolve into the water and be lost if it isn’t simply blown to pieces in the explosion. <em>Will the bombs go off on impact?</em> He places the picture directly behind the steering, right between his hands. <em>Or will they take a moment?</em> It doesn’t matter, really. The force of the plane hitting the ice will be enough to kill anyone on board. He’s drifting downward, slowly, and there are only seconds left to wonder.</p><p>The plane dips below the clouds, and he looks at the drawing. Bucky’s arm around his shoulder, hugging Steve’s tiny body into his side. He feels a phantom warmth surrounding him, warding off the freezing air that’s tunneling through the hole in the plane.</p><p><em>Till the end of the line</em>, he thinks, and drives the controls down towards the ice. He expects it’s the last thing he’ll ever do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. bucky</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"You're my mission."<br/>"Then finish it."</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The metal fist hits him in the face again and again, and for a moment, it’s almost like being back in the alleyway, getting beat up by some asshole who was rude to a lady. Except this time, Bucky’s not coming to his rescue, he’s not going to kick the guy out with some clever comment and pull Steve back to his apartment to make sure he’s okay.</p><p>This time, Bucky’s the one throwing the punches.</p><p>
  <em>“Who the hell is Bucky?”</em>
</p><p>Every line about their lives, every reminder was met with denial. Every step he took forward, Bucky threw him back. Every muscle screams, every part of him is bruised and the bullets he took trying to get the last card into the slot send waves of pain through his body. Steve can feel blood dripping through his old suit. His arm still aches from jumping from the elevator, even though it should probably be healed by now. The shield is gone, anyway. There’s nothing in between them and for anyone else, he would be trying to scramble for some half-baked plan, something to save the innocent, even if it meant sacrificing himself.</p><p>“You’re my mission.”</p><p>But the mission is over, the helicarriers are falling. There is no one left to save. Just Bucky.</p><p>The metal arm raises for one last blow, and Bucky’s face swims before him. “Then finish it,” he says, and Bucky pauses, panting and angry and listening. It’s a last-ditch effort, a promise he made after Steve buried his Ma, and a promise they repeated time and time again – when Bucky shipped out, when Steve found him on the table, every mission in between, and before the train.</p><p>“Cause I’m with you to the end of the line.”</p><p>Something in Bucky’s eyes shifts towards fear, and all Steve can do is look at him. His body is numb, there are sparks flying through the air, and the sound of creaking beams and shattered glass fill the space around them, and all he sees is Bucky’s hair whipping around his face with the wind as he lowers his arm and opens his mouth in recognition.</p><p>And then he’s falling, surrounded by debris and fire and the water below, and oh, he knows this feeling. The rush of the air and the knowledge that his options have run out. They’ve switched positions from the train, he thinks, and the water rushes up to meet him. The last thing he sees before he hits the surface is Bucky’s face, still hanging to the helicarrier by one arm, watching in horror.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>highkey why did I give myself emotions while writing this<br/>maybe... short chapters not inherently bad... long chapters not inherently good<br/>much to think about</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. peggy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They must be taking turns losing each other.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The plane ride over the Atlantic is too long. He flies as a civilian, and with his baseball cap and the beginnings of a beard he hasn’t bothered to shave, and no one recognizes him. Sam is next to him, but he looks the same as always; they don’t know who he is yet. It’s amazing what modern technology can do – he’s gotten used to the Quinjet, with its futuristic design and full battle equipment, but the commercial flight has perks too. An attendant distributes plastic cups of water and pretzels, and Sam tells him that somewhere in the 7-hour trip, they’ll have an in-flight meal. Steve can’t bring himself to eat.</p><p>The last time he was over this ocean, he was flying west, panicking and numb and resigned to his fate. Peggy lost him, and he lost seventy years that he’ll never get back. This time, the plane moves eastward, and they must be taking turns losing each other, because his best girl is gone.</p><p>He’s never been good with words or emotions, preferring to draw when he needs an outlet, and he doesn’t speak at the funeral. None of these people really know him, anyway. They don’t know that she was the last person he could really talk to. Even if they find Bucky, there’s no telling what shape he’ll be in. He doesn’t say a word as he carries her casket to the front of the church, not when Sam asks him how he’s doing when he sits down.</p><p>Even with the pain that came with her failing memory, Peggy was the last thing he had from the past. He tried to make it to visit her as often as possible, but their mission intel was sporadic and usually required them to drop everything to get to the location. The last time they spoke, he promised to call soon. Now, he sits at a somber church service.</p><p>Sharon’s speech grabs the only other thing in his mind. “She said compromise where you can, but where you can’t don’t.” Her eyes meet his, and the shimmer of the stained-glass windows in the church makes him think of a warmer gaze, pinned back curls and a reassuring presence. He wonders what Peggy would say if he could ask her about the Accords. “Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you move. It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, to look them in the eye and say, no, you move.”</p><p>He’s reminded of his first camp, the lineup where Peggy knocked a soldier down with a single punch. Their first meeting. He had been amazed with the kind of strength she possessed – not just physical, although he had been envious at the time, but the poise with which she carried herself in a camp full of men that were more than a little rough around the edges. She hadn’t changed how she looked at him after the serum, even when everyone else believed he possessed that same poise. Tall, healthy Steve was more worthy of respect. Peggy still saw the self-sacrificing little guy from Brooklyn.</p><p>Sam keeps his arm around his shoulders as they walk from the church to the graveyard. The priest leads them in prayer, but Steve doesn’t know it. Near the end, some of the crowd take a flower from the bouquet resting on the coffin; Steve tucks a single red rose and a sprig of small white blooms between his hands. The world blurs as they lower her into the ground.</p><p>-</p><p>The reception is nice. He hasn’t been to one in a while, but it’s clear that they haven’t changed much in the last seventy years. Most people mill about, sticking within their immediate family and speaking to each other in soft tones. Sam stays by his side, a comforting presence when others come to shake Steve’s hand. When they’re finally left alone, they walk the edges of the room, looking through photographs.</p><p>A large frame holds a family photo, and a dark-haired man sits close to Peggy, smiling and balancing a toddler on his lap. Beside it stand more black and white images, a marriage ceremony, children’s graduations, and a photo of an older Peggy in her full uniform, grey streaks disrupting the darkness of her hair. How had she changed? How had she stayed the same? In her old age, she spent so much time stuck in the past that there had been no difference between the Peggy he knew and the Peggy in the nursing home. Had she been someone in between that he never got to see?</p><p>“She lived a long life, Steve,” Sam says, and Steve breathes deeply, trying to hold back the tears that sprung up again.</p><p>The <em>without me</em> dangles in the air, but he doesn’t speak it into reality. “I’m glad I got to see her in the end.” There are more photographs around the room, showing more family events and SHIELD historical moments. He finds he doesn’t care to look for Howard’s face. Everything he’s learned about Tony tells him that his friend changed after his disappearance. Steve can keep his memories, but learning about the rest of his life doesn’t hold the same interest it once did.</p><p>As they leave, a picture near the door catches his eye, and he stops in his tracks. It’s a picture of the Howling Commandos – Dum Dum and Jim and Peggy and a few more he recognizes only from the mission reports he poured over when he first got back. They’re smiling, but the map in the foreground and the weapons in the back speak to an atmosphere of tense anticipation. The video from the Smithsonian swims in the back of his mind; he remembers the original Commandos in the same situations, wiping out Hydra bases and barely getting away with their lives. If he let himself, he could fall back into the motions, pointing and ordering until he was sure they were as prepared as possible. He’d made the mistake during the Chitauri attack, leading and throwing the shield until he couldn’t tell if he was in New York or on German terrain; the only thing that brought him back to reality was the glare of the Iron Man armor in the sky. The war is over, his friends are gone, and connections to the past keep slipping through his fingers.</p><p>Sam claps him on the back, and he slams back into the present, finding that he’s reaching towards the photo. Steve pulls his arm back before he can smudge the glass, and he’s not surprised by the wetness on his cheeks. “You good?” It’s a stupid question. Steve knows what he looks like when he cries.</p><p>“We’ve gotta find Bucky.” He’s trying to hold back more tears, but his voice sticks in his throat. He’s visited the graves, talked to the families. His room holds a file with reports full of history and death dates and living connections. Peggy’s had been distinct, lacking the red “deceased” on the first page that marked the others. He never looked for Bucky’s, never wanted to print out the evidence of a life he witnessed in its entirety. It was sickening, walking back into his room the first time he realized he was wrong. “We have to find him,” he repeated. “He’s the only one left.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i truly did not set out to make this as long as it is, even though it's not that long. based the funeral off of my own experiences because it's not really in the movies, so sorry if it tends a little catholic (couldn't find if Peggy had a particular religion? so just went with what I know and toned it down a little)<br/>only one chapter left!</p><p>(also i edited this in a zoom meeting so tell me if there are mistakes lol)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. +1 tony</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p><i>Keep him safe. Keep him safe. Keep him safe.</i><br/>Tony blasts the shield away before he can process it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i finally finished it babyyyy! enjoy</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He knows this is going to be hard to come back from. Tony’s shooting missiles at Bucky as he climbs the storage silo to escape, and it’s going to take some intense team bonding to remedy this. They can do it, he thinks, because they know that Bucky is innocent and they know that both parties made mistakes. If Tony can just <em>calm down</em>, he would be able to realize that killing Bucky wouldn’t solve anything.</p><p>
  <em>“Did you know?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I didn’t know it was him.”</em>
</p><p>If Tony was the one making mistakes by joining with the government, Steve was the one who took an axe to their friendship. The hope that this will end up okay is rapidly declining.</p><p>Bucky’s just trying to escape <em>(</em><em>Bucky is just trying to escape)</em> and Tony’s not stopping. He kicks him in the chest and Bucky slams into the wall, landing on his stomach and struggling to get up, and Steve moves on instinct, flipping in front of his friend and deflecting a repulsor beam away from him. It catches Tony in the head instead, and the Iron Man armor drops, landing several levels below. The crash of metal on concrete makes his stomach churn, and he has to stop himself from jumping down to help him up. Every single training exercise, every minor battle since the Chitauri, every instinct is screaming and pulling him in the other direction, but he moves towards Bucky instead.</p><p>“He’s not going to stop. Go.” The words tumble out of his mouth, breathless and clumsy and terrified. Bucky jumps up another level, moving as quickly as he can toward the top of the silo, and Steve readies himself to make sure Tony can’t get to him. As the suit flies upward, he throws his grappling hook line and jumps, pulling Iron Man back down with him. It wraps around his neck, and Steve can hear the metallic sounds of the armor crashing into the levels above as they fall. Tony cuts the wire, aims for Bucky, and Steve throws the shield at him without hesitation.</p><p>It only takes one repulsor blast for it to fall uselessly to the ground, and Steve always knew they were evenly matched but he never expected to fight in anything other than friendly competition. They’d done a few spars before, but only as practice. Only as a demonstration. Tony blows the hinges on the roof, cutting off Bucky’s exit, and they fall down the silo quickly, Tony’s arm around Bucky’s neck until Steve jumps across and adds another person to the mix. They break apart, and the next thing Steve feels is the unforgiving pain of concrete under his body as he rolls to a stop on the ground.</p><p>It’s hand to hand then, because the shield is somewhere out of sight and Tony is moving to incapacitate and if Steve falls then Bucky is next, and that’s not an option.</p><p>He’s on the ground, trying to catch his breath after taking a repulsor blast to the stomach. He can hear the sounds of metal on metal before he can see them fighting, but just as he makes it to his feet, there’s a larger blast.</p><p>Bucky is screaming, and something inside of Steve snaps. He’s not dead, he can tell that much as he picks the shield up and runs towards Tony, but the severed wires in Bucky’s shoulder are sparking brightly enough to see from his position. As he turns, the silver arm is lying several feet away.</p><p>The armor is against the wall and Steve slams his shield into the chest plate.</p><p>
  <em>Keep Bucky safe. </em>
</p><p>He’s had enough work neutralizing enemies that he can do it one more time without thinking. If he can just knock him out or disable the suit, he knows it will end, and his fists meet the helmet with a horrifying clang.</p><p>
  <em>Keep Bucky safe.</em>
</p><p>The arc reactor is so close, so easily hit if he can just get the right angle, and Steve draws the shield back for the blow.</p><p>Tony catches it before it makes contact.</p><p>It takes less than a second for him to gain the upper hand. The shock ripples through the shield and into Steve’s body, and the Iron Man helmet’s eyes have so much hatred in their gaze that he falters a little. The armor has always been menacing, but never towards him.</p><p>Tony blasts the shield away before he can process it.</p><p>They trade punches. <em>Keep Bucky safe.</em> A blast catches him in the chest, not strong enough to cause damage, but it throws him across the room hard enough that something in his shoulder tears when he lands on it. <em>Keep Bucky safe.</em> He rolls back to his feet. Two more punches, and Tony must be doing something because every move is hitting his weak spots, a metal elbow to the face, then an uppercut to his chin, and Steve can’t even land a hit.</p><p>The second blast hits him in the stomach, and the cold floor is unforgiving when he falls.</p><p>
  <em>Keep him safe. </em>
</p><p>Bucky is on the ground behind him, and all Steve can do is shield him with his own body.</p><p>“He’s my friend.” Steve doesn’t know how to tell him that he can’t lose Bucky, that the train and the battle have been two times too many. How to say that he wakes up dreaming that he caught Bucky before he could fall, and that he would always, always choose living in the dream over returning to reality. How he used to wish that he never escaped the ice, before learning that his friend was still alive.</p><p>He can’t take another close call or become a government slave or lose someone else he loves. He doesn’t know how to say that he’s made mistakes, he’s thought selfishly, and he will never be able to apologize enough, but Steve knows that if he loses Bucky one more time, he’s done.</p><p>He moves forward to try to explain, but Tony steps back. “So was I.”</p><p>The last bit of hope inside him crumbles.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>the number of times i have watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNsq_ZzXUNU&amp;t=90s">this fucking video</a> is ridiculously high. and all it did was make me sad because ouch civil war was so much easier when i was just a tony fan. but post endgame and with some of the new content i've fallen heavily into the steve/bucky and associated sides of ao3 and now i love them both and everything is just deeply tragic. </p><p>if you leave a comment i will adore you</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come visit me on <a href="https://stark2ashla.tumblr.com/">tumblr!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>